Oh, without prayer what are the church's agencies, but the stretching out of a dead man's arm, or the lifting up of the lid of a blind man's eye? Only when the Holy Spirit comes is there any life and force and power.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the vital role of prayer as the source of life and strength within the church.
Charles Spurgeon articulates the necessity of prayer in the life of the church, suggesting that without it, its actions and agencies lack true vitality, just as a lifeless body cannot perform meaningful actions. The church becomes ineffective unless infused with the power of the Holy Spirit, which is made manifest through prayer, highlighting prayer as a vital connection to divine strength and guidance.
In practice
During a sermon about faith and community, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of prayer.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
I sit in the sky like a sphinx misunderstood; My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans; I hate the movement that displaces the rigid lines, With lips untaught neither tears nor laughter do I know.
My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home.
I am dead because I have no desire,_x000D_ I have no desire because I think I possess,_x000D_ I think I possess because I do not try to give;_x000D_ Trying to give, we see that we have nothing;_x000D_ Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,_x000D_ Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,_x000D_ Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,_x000D_ Desiring to become, we live.
Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Imagine no possessions; I wonder if you can.
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